Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 1

by H. Sutherland Edwards

In the Bois de Boulogne stood formerly the Château de Madrid, said to have been erected by King Francis I. in memory and on the pattern of the one where, after the defeat of Pavia, Charles V. had held him captive. In spite of the recollections which it must have evoked, and which it is said to have been intended to evoke, Francis I. often visited his castle in the wood. It was turned to questionable use by various kings of France, and Henry III. varied the diversions of which it was so often the scene by introducing combats between wild beasts and bulls. One night, however, this depraved and sanguinary monarch dreamt that his animals wished to devour him, and the next morning he gave orders that they should all be killed and replaced by packs of little dogs. What remains of the ancient château is now a fashionable restaurant. Close by is the delightful Bagatelle, built in sixty-four days by the Count of Artois, and called at one time Folie d’Artois. Above the principal entrance the Count (afterwards Charles X.) had inscribed the words, Parva sed apta. Under the Revolution this “small but suitable” structure was used for public festivals; and it was here, at the time of the Restoration, that the Duke of Bordeaux, posthumous son of the Duke of Berry, was brought up.

The Duke of Bordeaux (who afterwards took the title of Count of Chambord) was the last representative of the elder branch of the Bourbons, a house which is said to have produced since the fourteenth century some six hundred remarkable men, chiefly soldiers, and which, apart from their feats of war, founded thrones in all the Latin countries of Europe—in France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. It has been said that the duke was brought up as a child at Bagatelle in the Bois de Boulogne; and many were the speculations and suspicions of which he was at that time the subject. When, indeed, after the Revolution of 1830 Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, assumed the crown, and was thereupon accused by the partisans of the dethroned Charles X. of violating his promise to act as Regent until the majority of the Duke of Bordeaux, a paper was issued, apparently by the Orleanists, denying that the Duke of Bordeaux was the legitimate son of the assassinated Duke of Berry, eldest son of Charles X. The Courrier Français, a journal devoted to the new dynasty, now published a letter which had first appeared ten years before in the Morning Chronicle of London, asserting the illegitimacy of the Count of Chambord.

“The proposals,” said the Courrier Français, “which the Duke of Mortemart has just made to the Chamber of Peers in favour of the Duke of Bordeaux will naturally recall attention to a subject which at last may be freely examined and discussed. We shall confine ourselves to publishing a document inserted in the English papers of the time, and which has never appeared in France. Its publication is perfectly opportune; it completes the parallel that has been drawn until now between the Stuart and the Capet families.” The Courrier Français then reproduced a document entitled “Protest of the Duke of Orleans,” which ran as follows: “His Royal Highness declares by these presents that he {223} protests formally against the procès-verbal dated 29th September last, which document professes to establish the fact that the child named Charles Ferdinand Dieudonné is the legitimate son of Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Berry. The Duke of Orleans will produce in fit time and place witnesses who will make known the origin of the child and of its mother, and he will point out the authors of the machination of which that very weak princess has been the instrument.”

The Morning Chronicle, in publishing the document about six weeks after the Count’s birth, denied its authenticity, adding, however, that it was being industriously circulated in every part of France, and that a copy of it had been addressed to the ambassador of every Power represented at Paris. It was not, of course, under Charles X. published in any Paris newspaper; and when at last, in Louis Philippe’s reign, it found its way into the columns of the Courrier Français it was impossible not to notice that the journal which first printed it was one devoted to the interests of the new king.

The Château de la Muette, another of the remarkable edifices in the Bois de Boulogne, was originally a hunting-box where Charles IX., the hero of the St. Bartholomew Massacre, used to shoot stags and boars from a box before giving himself the royal pleasure of shooting Huguenots from the balcony of the Louvre.

The Avenue Marigny has a greater number of frequenters among the Parisian public than the more distant Bois de Boulogne.

It dates from the reign of Louis XV., until which time it formed part of the historic marsh, and it owes its name to its designer. After the cession of the Champs Élysées to the town of Paris in 1828, the Avenue Marigny became the scene of the fêtes given every year in honour of the successor of the monarch who made the cession. On the 27th, 28th, and 29th of July, the anniversaries of the Revolutionary days of 1830, two theatres were put up in the Avenue Marigny, on whose boards military spectacles were represented, while their orchestras played dance music for the exhilaration and physical recreation of the general public. Booths for acrobats and tight-rope dancers were also established; wild beasts were shown, and wrestling matches took place. One of the first acts of the Emperor Napoleon III. in 1852 was to change all this. The town of Paris gave back to the State, by a perpetual lease, the whole of the Champs Élysées, where it had been determined to construct an edifice which should serve for national exhibitions, and other civil and military festivals, the building to be after the model of the English Crystal Palace. In two years the Palace of Industry was finished; and in 1855 it became the scene of a universal exhibition opened in the course {224} of the Crimean War, and honoured by the visit of Queen Victoria. The second and third universal exhibitions at Paris were held in a larger building constructed for the purpose, and the fourth (1889) in a larger building still. The Palais de l’Industrie of 1855 is now used for annual exhibitions of agriculture, horticulture, horses and fat cattle; also for the annual exhibition of painting, sculpture, and engraving.

The Champs Élysées form a pleasure resort for all classes of the Parisian population; and the number of lightly constructed booths for the sale of cakes and toys show that among the frequenters of the Avenue Marigny there are a good number of children, many of whom may be seen driving about in little goat-chaises.

The Avenue Marigny, with its interminable files, at every hour of the day, of horsemen, horse-women, and carriages, leads directly to the Triumphal Arch, known as the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile, from which a magnificent view may be obtained of the whole line of the Champs Élysées from its commencement as marked by the Obelisk of the Place de la Concorde.